Political intrigue over new boundary for supervisor’s district

At first glance, the four-square blocks added to the northeast corner of the boundary for District Four supervisor looks inconsequential, but one potential political scenario emerged publicly over the weekend.

Malcolm Yeung/photo courtesy of BeyondChron

That’s when power broker and Mayor Ed Lee confidant Rose Pak, announced at the Sunday Streets event held in Chinatown that her friend and ally, Malcolm Yeung, lives in that new sliver of District Four and would be a good fit for the supervisor’s job — should it become available.

BeyondChron, a local blog supportive of Lee, posted a piece stating that Yeung would be the “obvious choice” for the seat.

And it could become available if all the dominoes fall into place. Here’s how: city Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting would have to win his race for the state Assembly in the November election, giving the mayor the opportunity to name his replacement. There’s been widespread speculation that he may pick District Four Supervisor Carmen Chu for that role. She would have to agree. If that happens, the mayor would appoint her successor. And there’s no guarantee it would be Yeung.

Yeung, who works at the Chinatown Community Development Center, took a leave from the politically connected organization to serve as a top aide to Lee during his fledgling administration.

When asked by the City Insider Thursday whether he would want the supervisor’s seat, Yeung said, “It’s not something I’ve really thought about. … I haven’t had any real conversations about it.” That wasn’t exactly “no.”

Yeung, who has lived on Irving Street just west of 17th Avenue for 11 years, said he was on hand when Pak made her remarks Sunday but was eager to get back to his task at hand: playing ping pong at the street fair.

But now people are wondering whether the new district lines were put in place to possibly benefit Yeung. “If it was, it was done without me,” Yeung said.

District Four is colored pale orange, on the left side of the map.

Eric McDonnell, who chaired the redistricting task force, said that redrawing the district lines to favor Yeung never came up in public testimony or during the panel’s deliberations. He said no one approached him about it either. “If there was ‘a plan,’ it was not voiced by anyone.”

Lee spokeswoman Christine Falvey said no such maneuver was at play.

Supervisor Carmen Chu, the current District Four representative, said if there was a scheme to give Yeung an edge, she didn’t know about it.

She said District Four needed to gain in population under redistricting to be in line with the other 10 districts. “We knew the district had to grow, not by a lot, but by a little,” she said.

The task force’s initial discussion focused on expanding the boundary south past Sloat Boulevard, but a vocal contingent of residents there opposed the idea and it was dropped, Chu said. Unable to expand west because of the ocean, or north because of Golden Gate Park, that left only the eastern boundary for tinkering.

In the end, the panel settled on pushing the district east to 17th Avenue between Lincoln Way and Judah Street toward the Inner Sunset, an area that had been part of District Five. For the remaining two miles of District Four’s eastern edge, 19th Avenue serves as the boundary.

An interesting side note: Yeung’s name had been floated as a possible replacement for the District Five seat when Ross Mirkarimi gave it up to become sheriff. Mayor Ed Lee ended up appointing Christina Olague.

Now, with the new district boundaries in place, Yeung’s name is out there again. If nothing else, it makes for good political gossip during the quiet pre-Labor Day week at City Hall.